Don't look now, but college basketball starts Monday.
Although the first full day of action won't be until Friday the 14th, the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament has the docket to themselves the first four days of the week, in what has become a tradition in the last few years on ESPNU.
The structure is similar to other large early season tournaments. Sixteen teams are split into four groups of four at a host school. Typically, the host school is much, much stronger than the other three teams in their bracket, virtually assuring that the semifinals and finals at Madison Square Garden will feature elite schools with big fan followings.
Gardner-Webb broke that trend last year when they upset Kentucky in Lexington to earn the trip to New York, where they bowed out in the semifinals to Connecticut. Curiously, the Huskies already had Gardner-Webb on their schedule for later, which means the two schools with little in common would face each other twice in the non-conference regular season (UConn won both).
This year, the organizers still give the hosts cupcakes for the first round, but in most cases, have amped up the potential matchups for the second game considerably.
The first game of the year (or to be exact, the second game of the year, but the first on TV) will be Duke hosting Presbyterian. This is just the second year in Division I for the Presbyterian Blue Hose, who would be smart to set a goal to keep the Duke victory margin to under 40.
The winner of that one will play the winner of Georgia Southern and Houston on Tuesday. Houston finished third in Conference USA last year and won 24 games. Duke cannot sleep on them, although Houston graduated a lot of firepower.
The biggest dud of a region, and the only one not covered by ESPNU, is the Southern Illinois region. This region has two good teams: the hosts and UMass, who made the NIT Championship Game last year. The other two teams are from Division II. One is the California of Pennsylvania Vulcans, who have a great logo, and the Arkansas-Monticello Boll Weevils. Be very afraid.
Michigan is the third host, and are easily the eighth most deserving Big Ten school to do so. They also face a Division II school in the first round, Michigan Tech, and that will be on ESPNU. I can't remember a Division II school being on national television (unless it was Chaminade or Alaska-Anchorage, but they don't count) for a regular season game before.
Michigan Tech is only a .500 team at that, but as an Ohio State fan, I'll watch, as Michigan sports these days are the schadenfreude gifts that keep on giving.
The other side of that bracket is a very intriguing one: Northeastern, from the tough Colonial League (the league that gave us George Mason, plus other good teams in recent years like VCU and Drexel), against IUPUI (Indiana U-Purdue U-Indianapolis). IUPUI won 26 games last year, but in one of the weakest Division I conferences: the Summit Conference.
The Summit Conference used to be known as the Mid-Continent Conference, and it holds a special place in my heart. Akron (my hometown school) used to compete in it, as did Cleveland State when they made their deep NCAA tourney run before they were stopped by David Robinson's Navy.
These are hard times for the Summit League, who have fallen behind not just the Big Ten and the MAC for midwest talent, but behind the Missouri Valley Conference and the Horizon League, who count several former Mid-Continent members among their ranks.
These days, the conference is dominated by Oral Roberts, but IUPUI is right behind.
The final bracket is probably the toughest: the UCLA bracket. The Bruins get Prairie View A&M as their sacrificial lamb, but the opposite game is Weber State, a scrappy Bracket Buster-esque type team who finished third in the Big Sky, and Miami of Ohio, a postseason mainstay a year removed from a MAC championship.
UCLA, like Duke, is a bit too strong to get knocked off in their brackets, but at least they were given opponents (for the second round) who stand a good chance of keeping the margin of victory to 10-15 and force them to play their starters throughout the game.
First Round
Duke over Presbyterian
Houston over Georgia Southern
Southern Illinois over California of Pennsylvania
UMass over Arkansas-Monticello
Michigan over Michigan Tech
IUPUI over Northeastern
UCLA over Prairie View A&M
Miami (OH) over Weber State
Second Round
Duke over Houston
UMass over Southern Illinois
IUPUI over Michigan
UCLA over Miami (OH)
Semifinals
Duke over UMass
UCLA over IUPUI
Finals
Duke over UCLA
Also:
Cancer over Coaches (fortunately, Cancer loses in the Championship Game to Doctors)
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